England Cricket

England are currently playing cricket against a Pakistan Cricket Board XI in Dubai.
As an aside, is all sport either played in Middle Eastern countries or owned by people from the Middle East, or is that just a conspiracy theory...
I am not quite sure exactly what to call the match, as it isn't a Test match, as it only runs for 3 days, yet, as far as I know there is no limit on the number of overs required...

Anyway, finally, to the cricket...
Pakistan won the toss & fielded. With the exception of Cooke (yet again the England saviour) it has been pretty average from the batsmen.
Cooke is 131 not out, but that represents nearly 50% of the England score, for 7 wickets down..
267 for 7 with the real tail in...Wicki Prior managed 46 & Pietersen did his usual get in, then out for 38. No one else is really worth a mention.
Not exactly inspiring, but just maybe taking the likes of Pietersen, Strauss, Trott & Bell on this tour is a complete waste of time. Especially when the bowling is not exactly the finest...
Just as Australia are starting to move forward again this is not good news for England supporters...to expect Cooke to win every match on his own is one thing. but he may as well have some youngsters trying to stay with him & as the same old faces failing again!!!

Well Cooke didn't make many more than my first report (133) & so then England declared at 269 for 9.
It looked a great total until Talha & Hasan at the tail put on a face saving 54 run partnership, Hasan then went onto accumulate another partnership of 27 with last man in Mohammad Khalil. As Khalil only contributed 1 to the stand it was a heroic, if slow effort, which Pakistan ended by declaration once Hasan had reached his 50.
That left them on exactly 200 for 9 & 69 runs behind.
Monty Panesar (yes, remember him.. ) was the England bowler of the match with 5 for 57 in a near 30 over effort where 12 of them were maidens.
The England openers ended the day comfortable unbeaten on 82.
Need for a dash then a declaration if a result is going to be achieved. Although a draw looks the most likely result unless someone is going to be daring...

England batted on to allow Trott to attempt to reach a ton & then declared immediately he was out just short at 93.
Strauss & Trott had put on 130 in a decent opening stand, while Pietersen had a very short & unsuccessful stay.
So declared on 181 for 3, leaving the Pakistan eleven 250 for victory.

It didn't start well for them as they lost 2 wickets while on 7 & then a further one when reaching 16.
Despite a spirited knock of 51 from Fawad in a nice stand of 71 with Salahuddin the batting side just lost wickets on too regular a basis. Finally all out for just 150, giving England a 100 run victory.
Panesar chipped in with another 3 wickets in the innings in what was a highly successful game for his type of bowling.
I'm still not convinced that he is a Test spinner though but, again, he showed he can be highly effective if the conditions are in his favour.

Tuesday, 17th. January sees the start of the tour proper against Pakistan...

Oh dear the first Test has started.

England batsmen rather took the principle that they had taken over from India a little too far.
It was a quite awful display of how not to bat against spinners.

All out for 192, & that largely down to wicki Prior (not out for 70) & spinner Swann with 34.
The first 5 England batsmen went for just 43 runs.
Ajmal had a riot with his offbreaks, claiming 7 wickets for just 55 runs which must be about his Test best. Not too shabby for a 35 year old...

Early days in the Pakistan reply as they are 14 without loss....which is already a step better than England...

I doubt if there are exactly huge crowds in Dubai (I must look when I have 2 minutes) & they won't exactly have been glued to the edge of their seats watching Pakistan today.
Slow & steady, but effective, none the less.
2.75 an over off the first 100 overs....slow...
275 for 5 & so 82 ahead.... Just reading the BBC reports every hour is tiring, thank goodness I missed an invite to the game...

Well it was very slow & steady but Pakistan managed to accumulate 338 before being all out.
That gave them a 146 lead...considerable given what England scored in the first innings & the way that the England batsmen reacted to the mess they found themselves in..

Trott could not quite make the 50 (out on 49) & Swann is still there on 29...but he is there with last man Anderson & they still have to score 11 to make Pakistan bat again...
If the first innings was poor the second was pathetic, although even that is probably too strong a word when describing them.
They can't even claim to have been mesmerised by the cunning bowling of Ajmal in the second as he only managed 2. Rehman took 3 & Gul has 4 so far.....

Pakistan beat England by 10 wickets

Well Swann was last man out on 39, leaving Anderson high & dry on 15 for a total of 160.
Pakistan had, therefore to bat again to get 15 runs, opener Hafeez made them all leaving Umar runless after facing 6 balls...

Wednesday, 25 January 2012 it starts again. Hopefully with rather different results..

Honours about even after the second Test in Abu Dhabi, Day 1.

Pakistan decided to bat & made a decent fist of it, ending the day on 256 for 7.
Misbah-ul-Haq was, again the main man for the batters, not out at the close on 83. As with the first Test though it was painfully slow. 2.7 runs an over is hardly streaking away but runs on the board are what matters.
Panesar was the main strike bowler for fielding side, rolling down 33 not very successful overs for 1 wicket taken. I gather he was getting a fair amount of turn - especially for Day 1 of a Test - but generally bowled far to short to actually worry the batsmen.
That was compounded by a poor England day in the field generally when catches went begging when the batsmen did make mistakes.

Not a huge improvement on the first Test so far by England who rather seem to be taking the contest as a winter break than a serious competition. I gather that the crowd amounted to about 1,000 souls, so maybe understandable.
I personally still get the feeling that England should have taken this opportunity to blood some new players.

Panesar & Pietersen have had enough chances to impress & failed.
The coach will learn absolutely nothing about Trott, Cook or Bell that he didn't know before this trip.
Anderson is still recovering from injury &, being the main strike bowler, would have probably benefited from lounging around a swimming pool somewhere other than the Middle East.....

Well from 256 for 7 overnight to 257 all out. The last 4 batsmen (well, bowlers carrying a bat) went for a duck.

England got to 27 before they lost Strauss for 11. Trott came in to partner Cook & they compiled a nice partnership of 139 before Trott fell for 74. Then Cook went for 94 as his rock status for England returned, pity he could not make the 3 figures.
Pietersen continued his record of peanut scores, contributing just 14.
It left Bell & Morgan to try & bat out the few remaining overs but the Pakistan bowlers really had the bit between their teeth now & Morgan went in the last over of the day..
It left England on 207 for 5, exactly 50 behind.
That sounds like a good position, but I am not so sure...Pakistan were also 203 for 4 & didn't make many more.
The two batsmen have not exactly had long at the crease & the bowlers are on top, although appealing for every ball that hits a pad can get rather wearing...

Close run game that is rather favouring Pakistan now I think. If the ball spins about like this on Day 2, it will be impossible to play on Day 5...

Well the day started with the Pakistani spinners well on top.
Prior hung around fencing with the ball for 16 of them, scored 3 runs & looked out of his depth. His nervousness was also effecting Bell at the other end he hung around for 79 balls, but only scored 29 runs.
Broad had often been touted as the next Botham by the English media. He isn't that & his bowling has not always been of the best lately, but he is getting the hang of the bat, that is for sure.
Only Monty (well, what do you expect) really failed with the bat as a bowler. They put on 59 after the last batsman was out.
Broad remained undefeated on 59, giving England an important 70 run lead.

The English bowlers immediately got at the Pakistani batsman in what was looking a spiteful pitch.
They got the old slow coach Misbah-ul-Haq 4th, man out when the Pakistanis had only reached 54 & had two new batsmen in.
That was as good as it got for the day though. Some not very clever bowling & fielding let them off when they did make a mistake.
Azhar Ali was there at the end with a s l o w 46 off 140 balls (but better that than out) & Shafiq was there with 35 off 105.
55 ahead.
Panesar made up with his duck by taking 3 wickets while conceding 44 runs & collecting 13 maidens out of 25 bowled.
Broad the Pakistanis found hard to play but he just couldn't get a wicket. He ended up bowling 11 overs while just conceding 16 runs, including 6 maidens. Remarkable figures, but a couple in the wickets in that column would have made a huge difference.

Looks like a long & slow day in the field again tomorrow...who wins it is still in the lap of the Gods.

England have just finished Pakistan off in their second innings for 214.
Slightly more productive by the Pakistani last four tail enders who managed a combined total of zero in their first innings with 37 this time, although last man in J Khan did succeed in getting a double zero.
England need 145 to win it.
That sounds like a reasonably easy target until the figures show that Panesar got 6 for 62.
In the England first innings Ajmal frightened the batsmen to death, or rather an early walk. If Panesar can cause issues then it must be a turning wicket, so it could end up very tense. Especially if a few wickets go down early without making large inroads into the ask.

Deep do do now Zid.
Strauss, who looked like the only England batsman who knew what the bat was for, is out for 32.
Trott is in, late, apparently because he has the trots.

I gather England have only failed once when chasing less than 150.
In New Zealand with Geoffrey Boycott as captain & all out for less than a ton....

Now 56-5.

All over... a pathetic 72 all out..

Strauss 32, Prior 18 then extras 9 were the top scorers....
They should bring extras in at number 4 instead of Pietersen....

Rehman took 6 for 29...
Ajmal took 3 for 22 & becomes the quickest Pakistani bowler to get to 100 wickets...

Nothing more to say really...